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ABOUT THE PODCAST
Easy to listen to summaries of fundamental feminist texts of the past 500+ years. She Speaks Volumes provides a primer for critical moments in the history, theory, and philosophy of feminism. Each episode explores a writer, and the elements that shaped her world; in her own words exploring her struggle and how these ideas can contribute to our newly emerging post-patriarchal/postcolonial global society.
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She Speaks Volumes – Volume 2 Coming Soon
‘The Season of the Witch’
Conjurers, Pythias, Seers, Sorceresses, and Priestesses.
Volume 2 is Season of the Witch – I am covering artists, writers, and thinkers who draw their inspirations from the realm of the feminine-Psyche; women who conjure ideas and art from the shared and sacred space that all women have access to.
She Speaks Volumes – Volume 1
The first season of She Speaks Volumes looks at some of the writers, thinkers, and documentarians that have laid the foundations of modern feminism.
A Room of One’s Own: Virginia Woolf, 1929
A Room of One’s Own was the reason I started this podcast. Until two years ago I had not read it, and when I did I was inspired by Woolf’s dry wit, and gorgeous use of words. I hope this podcast will inspire you to read it if you haven’t, and enjoy it again if you have. Virginia Woolf is being read by Fiona Thraille. Complete episode credits in show notes.
The Book of the City of Ladies: Christine de Pizan, 1405
This book is not as widely known, but is should be. In addition to being considered ‘the first a woman picked up a pen in defence of her sex’ (Simone de Beauvoir), it is also a feast of allegory, a sometimes macabre, and often surrealist catalogue of women in antiquity.
Christine de Pizan is read by Leanne Woodward. Credits in show notes.
Dialogue on the Infinity of Love: Tulia d’Aragona, 1547
d’Aragona was a Ventian courtesan, poet, and philosopher. Dialogues about love are a genre unto themselves, and have a lineage dating back at least to Plato’s Symposium. As far as we know d’ Aragona’s is singular in that it is written by a woman and presents a feminine perspective on renaissance era love. The dialogue is read by Vita Wulff and Tomaso Thellung. Complete credits are in the show notes.
Response to the Most Illustrious Poet Sor Fillotea:
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1691
This letter is perhaps Sor Juana’s most famous work, but her poems and her plays deserve to be better known. This letter is not in fact to another poet/nun, but is actually directed at the Bishop of Puebla, (IMHO) a jealous and deceitful man who has betrayed Sor Juana, and exacts a punishment on her that robs all of humanity of the ‘phoenix of Mexico’. Sor Juana is voiced by Paola Poucel. The music is used by permission of the L.A. Camerata. Complete credits in show notes.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women:
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792
Wollstonecraft was greatly inspired by the ideals of the French republic, and the revolutions in France and in America. She wrote this book as a response to the misogyny she saw as power shifted from monarchies to democracies, but a democracy that only included men, despite promises that were made to women before the revolutions were won. Mary Wollstonecraft is voiced by Fiona Thraille. Complete credits are in the show notes.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Harriet Jacobs, 1861
Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery around 1813, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is her auto-biography, her own account of her life in slavery, and the harrowing years, a decade, she spent on the run, after her escape. This episode was the most difficult so far, I was worried about getting it wrong,; but one of the much talked of failures of second wave feminism was that it became a movement for white women. I don’t want to overlook the many women of colour, who have resisted not only misogyny but also the insidious residue of racism that we have inherited, encoded in such saccharine nonsense as ‘Gone With the Wind’. Harriet Jacobs is voiced by Portia Cue. Complete credits in the show notes.
Living My Life Vol 1: Emma Goldman, 1931
In her almost 70 years she witnessed, often firsthand, World War 1, the early part of World War 2, the Russian Revolution, The Spanish Civil War, the rise and fall of the American Trade Unions, the depression, and the rise and rise of capitalism. she fought for workers rights, wealth distribution long before it was a thing, campaigned for birth control and the rights of women. At heart she was an anarchist, and idealist and most surprisingly a romantic. Yet she was called the most dangerous woman in America…but dangerous for who? Emma Goldman is voiced by Halia Hirniak. Compete credits in the show notes.
Three Guineas: Virginia Woolf, 1938
Three Guineas is a satirical book length essay written as England is on the brink of World War 2. The essay is in response to a letter she has received asking her for a donation towards peace efforts, and posing the question, ‘how can women help prevent war? In both A Room of One’s Own, and in Three Guineas Woolf stresses how women’s exclusion from education has limited the influence women can exert outside of their homes, independent of their father, brothers, husbands and sons. Woolf has been accused of being elitist, but she is open and explicit about her privilege, far ahead of her time I might add.
Virginia Woolf is voiced by Fiona Thraille. Complete credits are in the show notes.